Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates talks Internet security and censorship with the
Financial Times at the RSA Security Conference 2006 in San Jose. Among other things, Gates discusses building a
"trust ecosystem" on the Internet--a standards-based, open system that would allow an individual's information to be shared between Web sites in a credited network. Gates says the open system will
become an industry standard. The system would make an individual instantly recognizable to a Web site, with the intended goal of maintaining privacy. Meanwhile, censorship comes into play as
governments like China and corporations that store information on the Web try to block users from access to certain sites. But, as Gates says, "The truth about the Internet is that it's extremely hard
to block anything--extremely hard. You'll never get perfect blocking." Because of this, Gates says, it's not necessary for the U.S. government to establish guidelines to regulate how Web companies
deal with censorship. That's certainly one way of looking at it, but let's not forget Microsoft and others have agreed to self-censorship. I would call that blocking access to information.
Read the whole story at Financial Times »
